If you’re on this post, I presume you’re wanting to create your own landing page. Great idea! Any site wanting to generate leads and maximise sales should have a landing page. Without them, you will lose out on customers, guaranteed. Even though the main purpose of this page is to advise you on how to design a perfect landing page for a PPC campaign, it’s worth noting that they’re found from visitors on multiple platforms online (search results, social media & email). Each click onto your landing page could ultimately result in gaining a customer or lead, so you can never have too many.

Nobody likes trying to work out how to do something through long-winded, complicated blocks of information. So, to make it simpler, I have split the process up into 10 steps. Who doesn’t love step by step guides? Here are our;

1. Think of a captive page title

Your page title is so important. This should be the first thing a visitor to your landing page will read. Taking that into account, it should be captive. If your page title is interesting, or enticing to potential customers, they will want to read on. Keeping it short, snappy and eye-catching is a good way of doing this. Here is an example from the BAK Digital website.

Here you can see the page title is short, attention-grabbing and relevant to the page. At BAK Digital, we refer to these type of Headlines as ‘Grablines‘. Anyway, as you can see, your page title and headlines should always be as concise as possible.

One final point about page titles; they must be relevant to the ad! It should feature what is being offered or advertised. For example, someone sees the ad which is selling a new style of shoe. Instantly they think ‘I want those!’. So, they click on the ad and see the page title ‘Sale on Women’s Trousers!’. Without hesitating, they leave the site thinking it’s not what they want. Visitors don’t want to be reading through your page to make sure it’s offering what they thought it was. It’s all in the page title. The better the title, the more chance of visitors becoming potential customers.

2. Landing pages need lovely layouts

Your landing page’s layout is completely dependant on what you are selling/advertising on it, and the style that you want it to be. What you need to do is focus on how good the page looks. Bland, unexciting pages will not be effective. Would you want to troll through a dull page?

A key factor for the design of your landing page is ensuring that it’s ‘skimmable’. Most visitors to your site probably won’t sit and read through every word of the page. People need to be able to skim through your page and pick out the keywords and most significant information. Split the page up into small, easy to read paragraphs and break up your content with pictures and/or videos.

Colour is always useful too, it gives life to the page. Just be wary of having too much colour and pictures. The last thing you want is visitors thinking they’ve clicked on a website for primary school children! You want your page to be appealing, but taken seriously.

It is possible that you may need to have a relatively lengthy message (this can be beneficial, even a necessity in some industries). If you think that you may fit into this category, don’t worry. Just ensure that you use some powerful introductory text to put emphasise on what makes your company stand out from the rest. As for the rest of your page, we have a useful tip or two in our next step for you…

3. Avoid waffle

One of the worst things you can do on a landing page is have huge blocks of information. A vast amount of text could cause visitors to get bored and simply leave the site without engaging any further. A lot of text also causes some people to feel over-whelmed or confused. The last thing you want to do is make your potential customers feel stupid. A landing page is there to sum up what you are offering, not explain every detail of it. Like I previously mentioned, it needs to be ‘skimmable’.

If you have a lot of information you need to put into your landing page, all is not lost. Like the example below shows, using lists is great with presenting information, much like this landing page is doing!

A little side note about this; each bullet point is expandable in case the reader does want to find out more about each section. You may want to use this feature.

4. Get your graphics in

Graphics and videos are brilliant. They grab the visitor’s attention easily. Most people would be drawn to a page which contains images or videos rather than a page with none. They can help paint a picture of what you are trying to sell/talk about without you having to describe it.

You can visually represent your information through info-graphics. This not only breaks up blocks of text on your page, but helps visitors to better take in your information. They make your page easier to digest whilst still providing the information readers need. They’re better simply because people don’t want to read loads of information. As the good ol’ saying goes – a picture can speak a thousand words.

Here’s an image I have pulled from the BAK Digital landing page. It helps to explain what the content is, and makes the page look more stimulating. This particular image is relevant as it links the train tracks in the image to the word ‘track’ used in the nearby text.

Using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%

Quick tip: Most of the traffic to your page will be first time visitors. This means you need to build a bond of trust. The more trust in your company from the content of the landing page, the more likely visitors are to progress into customers. Testimonials are good for building trust for your brand. Having a trustworthy brand proves your page’s legitimacy. Companies that you have worked with should also feature in your landing page to further gain trust and prove the quality of what you are offering. This could be shown through a graphic relating to the company.

5. Use an offer

Who doesn’t love something free? Or, at least something discounted. Offers are ideal for landing pages. They make the visitor feel like they are gaining something if they provide their contact details. The words ‘free’ or ‘discount’ immediately attract people’s attention. These can come in varied forms, like money off, free downloads, competitions etc as long as they are relevant to your content.

Quick tip: Your landing page’s offer should relate to your PPC campaign ad. The more relevance your landing page has to your PPC advert, the better the ad’s Quality Score will be on AdWords. The better your PPC advert’s quality score, the more likely it is to be selected by Google over other rival ads.

6. Remove navigation

Removing any links that could navigate your visitor away from the page is a good idea for two reasons. One, it stops the reader from getting distracted and viewing other pages and two, it stops them from being able to gain too much information without providing contact details or calling any given phone numbers. You don’t want the visitor to be discovering all the information on your site else the landing page is pointless.

7. Different devices

In this generation, most people are tablet and smart phone users. They aren’t going to want to scroll through pages of information on small screens. Something you should do is test your landing page on different devices to see how well it works and looks. Many visitors to your landing page could be mobile users, so it needs to be mobile friendly. This is to make sure your landing page makes sense and is aesthetically pleasing when being presented on a smaller screen.

8. Use CTA’s (Call to Action’s)

Call to Actions essentially mean the use of imperatives. For example, ‘Find out more here’ or ‘Call us now’. Using multiple CTA’s on your landing page is a good technique for trying to encourage the visitor to provide details or get in contact. Be careful though, overusing them could make your page come across as pushy and forceful. Obviously, the amount you use depends on the size of your landing page. If it’s small, for example maybe a few scrolls, use one or two. If your page is bigger, using more is fine.

This is a good use of a CTA, it’s instructive, but not pushy.

Another style of CTA is to use some sort of fill-out form. The whole point of a landing page is to try and gain customers, through relating to your PPC campaign and being able to contact them directly. These can include forms asking for a name, an email, an address or even an enquiry form they can fill in. But, avoid asking for too much information. This will seem invasive and could put visitors off.

Quick tip: Steer clear of the CTA ‘Click here’. It has been proven that this particular phrase discourages people as it is too generalised. What about the 56% of internet traffic that are mobile users with no mouse? Using a CTA more related to your content would prove much more successful.

9. Add a ‘thank you’ page

We all know the phrase ‘manners cost nothing’ and it’s true. Visitors will appreciate the use of a thank you page once they have entered their contact details. It’s polite and promotes your site well. Not only is it polite, it acts as acknowledgement for your visitor. A thank you page shows them clearly that the information they have provided has been successfully submitted and received. It doesn’t have to be complicated, something uncomplicated like this would be perfect:

So, surely that’s everything… Right?

10. Quality Test

You’re not quite done yet, but you are so nearly there! Last but absolutely not least, quality testing. This is the final thing you will do when making your landing page. You need to do exactly what it says on the tin; test EVERYTHING. This could include;

Testing any CTA’s you’ve put in. Go through your page and make sure every link works and is going to the right place. This can also mean checking your phone number is correct and all enquiry forms are working accordingly.

Makes sure all your images and graphics are correct and how you want them (if they are linked to a web page, make sure that link works).

Like I mentioned before, make sure your page is compatible with all the different devices like mobiles, tablets etc. It needs to work and look good across all platforms.

It sounds obvious, and probably flashes you back to being in school, but spell check. Read through your page thoroughly to ensure that there are no silly spelling or grammar mistakes.

Check any automated emails to confirm they are exactly how you want them to be, and work!

Follow these 10 easy steps and you will have yourself a perfect landing page. One that should ensure your PPC campaign is a success. I can feel them conversion rates rising already!